


Canker

by Eliyes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Dark, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Character Death, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliyes/pseuds/Eliyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk doesn't owe Star Fleet a <i>thing.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Canker

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt 'Character Study' on [cliche_bingo](http://cliche-bingo.livejournal.com/). Darker than how I think the universe actually is, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> This story was originally posted on Livejournal July 15, 2009.

 

While at Star Fleet Academy, Jim heard a lot of rumours about himself. This was not unusual in his life. Some of them were funny, some were accurate, some were downright insulting. Hell, some he even encouraged.  
  
But there was one that got his back up.   
  
_'Jim Kirk only got a shot at the Academy because of his dad.'_  
  
The irony was that this was _most_ often said by students implying that he was a loser and/or stupid, who disliked him because he was obviously smarter than them. He figured a lot of them actually _did_ only get in because they had a relative somewhere pulling strings -- or else Pike had been understating the dire straights Star Fleet was in, if _this_ was the cream of the crop. Whatever. Jim aced every course he took, advanced past the lowest levels by virtue of testing too high to be placed in them, took sick joy in skewing the grade curve so that people who might have squeaked by bombed instead, and was basically an arrogant genius asshole about the whole thing. Especially to the prissy ones.  
  
He didn't owe Star Fleet a fucking _thing_. It was really the other way around, in his eyes. Star Fleet got his dad killed. Star Fleet's way of acknowledging this was to put a shipyard in George Kirk's hometown, _Jim's_ hometown. The shipyard brought all kinds of new jobs to the area, and lots of people to fill them. Including one son-of-a-bitch who managed to sucker Jim's mom into thinking he'd make a good stepdad for her kids. Yeah, bringing him to Riverside was Star Fleet's fault, too, and so it was _Star Fleet's_ fault that said stepdad beat the hell out of Jim's brother Sam on a regular basis, and _Star Fleet_ shared the blame for Sam's death.  
  
The Psych courses he took only confirmed that one for him.   
  
And so, ultimately, _Star Fleet_ was the reason why Jim was in a bar commemorating the 2-year anniversary of Sam's suicide when a bunch of Star Fleet _cadets_ decided that Jim needed as many of them beating on him as they could muster.   
  
Some days, while he was at the Academy, he thought about the day he'd get his first posting, and he thought about saying 'fuck you' to Star Fleet, right then and there.  
  
But what Pike had proposed was a subtler, more far-reaching revenge. Change from the inside. Star Fleet fucking _needed_ Jim Kirk, Pike had said, and really, what else was new? Star Fleet had cost him his family -- two dead and a mother who was like a ghost in his life -- and he was smart enough and driven enough to climb through the ranks when he got out of this prison of higher learning until he was insinuated so deeply into Star Fleet's heart that they wouldn't fucking know what _hit_ them.  
  
In the meantime, he grit his teeth and ignored the people who seemed to think that James T. Kirk had some reason to be _grateful_ to fucking _Star Fleet_. There was no need to show his hand this early, after all. Out-smarting the Psych evaluations wasn't difficult -- Star Fleet shrinks _loved_ to think that the discipline and purpose of their precious institution could transform a delinquent into a proper, upstanding citizen. He let them pat themselves on the back and didn't give them so much as a _glimpse_ of the real Jim Kirk.   
  
He had a plan.

 


End file.
